Marché Aux Puces de Saint Ouen

Marché Aux Puces 

de Saint Ouen

Reading the media one might think that everyone in France is a socialist. A trip to Marché Aux Puces de Saint Ouen (Saint Ouen Flea Market for English speakers) might give you a different idea.

The fashion shopping experience while shopping downtown on let’s say, the tony Rue de Rivoli, looks like this.

While fashion shopping in the stalls surrounding the world’s largest flea market (their proclamation, and it’s quite believable) looks more like this. That’s right, surrounding the legitimate flea market. For blocks in every direction temporary stalls are set up in parking lots, on the sidewalks, under bridges, access streets, alleyways, in driveways, anyplace there’s a place to walk.

There are large encampments of RV’s, vans, pickup trucks, or overstuffed cars. Shops are set up under awnings extended from the vehicles to makeshift lean-tos and tents. 

You can buy anything from car, truck, motorcycle and bike tires to broken radios (I can’t quite figure that one out), VCR’s (yes, VCR’s and even prerecorded and blank tapes) or chargers for your phone or computer. Or maybe you need t-shirts, suits, hats, wallets, shoes, sneakers, scarves, a hookah or incense.

Unlike the bazaars of the Middle East we’ve visited, no one is grabbing your arm saying “Come see, come see”. Or responding to, “I’m just looking.” with, “I’m just selling!” In fact, simply picking up an item doesn’t garner much attention either. You actually have to examine the item, nearly form a relationship with it, before the proprietor will engage in conversation. They’re too busy conversing with the other stall vendors to take notice if you’re not truly interested. The French seem to prefer polite conversation to the cacophony of a Turkish bazaar. I’m with them.

 Migrating to the sanctioned flea market starts with a review of the map of the site. The market is roughly arranged by category of junk (let’s say found-object-art, missing pieces to more expensive items from porcelain and silver sets or to what one would consider true antique furniture, objects-du-art, and crystal chandeliers). Then there’s the miscellaneous castoff junk that’s been acquired in the hopes that someone might just come along that absolutely must have this item. I suspect that flea markets such as Saint Ouen are an absolute gold mine for movie producers looking for period props (Maybe that’s why a broken radio is salable?).

 

Of course all of this stimulus can be quite over-whelming for the uninitiated. But it’s just de rigor for the merchants, especially during lunch time.

 

And if you need temporary outside office space where you can have your dog by your side, just move some of your inventory into place and voila!

 There’s still plenty of soft goods such as dresses, jackets, shirts and the like too. 

Some of the more visually interesting spaces include a stall dedicated to miscellaneous broken doll parts. 

Or maybe you really need an assortment of beads to create one-of-a-kind jewelry, find that missing 1959 Corvette (only blue will do of course) from your Match Box car collection, or sometimes you just have a collection of crap (treasures) that have absolutely no possible taxonomy that can be attached to them. Somehow it was desirable though and you just knew it would sell. If only you could figure out how someone would even know that it was there buried under yet another pile of miscellaneous stuff.

Ultimately, the Marché Aux Puces de Saint Ouen is what could only be described as a legitimate enterprise where people come for both entertainment and purpose. The traffic can indeed include some well-to-do patrons too (based on the number of significant antique pieces, crystal chandeliers and silver service items alone).

My life is somehow more complete just knowing that about a kilometer from my apartment there’s a regular forum where one man’s junk can truly be another man’s treasure, one of the purest forms of capitalism.